Uzbekistan contains Bukhara, the ancient Silk Road trading centre.
Bukhara stands in the Zeravshan River region of central Asia and has a history extending back more than two millennia. Its location helped make it an important stopping point on routes linking China, India, Persia and the Mediterranean world. Merchants traded textiles, spices, metals and other goods there.
The city became especially prominent under Islamic dynasties and later served as the capital of the Samanid Empire in the ninth and tenth centuries. Its historic centre contains mosques, madrasas, mausoleums and commercial buildings, including the distinctive trading domes.
Bukhara is sometimes confused with Samarkand, another famous Uzbek Silk Road city. Samarkand is farther east and was strongly associated with Timur, while Bukhara became renowned as a centre of Islamic scholarship. UNESCO inscribed Bukhara’s historic centre as a World Heritage Site in 1993.